"The aggregate testimony of our neighbours is subject to the same conditions as the testimony of any one of them. Namely, we have no right to believe a thing true because everybody says so unless there are good grounds for believing that some one person at least has the means of knowing what is true, and is speaking the truth so far as he knows it. However many nations and generations of men are brought into the witness-box they cannot testify to anything which they do not know. Every man who has accepted the statement from somebody else, without himself testing and verifying it, is out of court."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
William Kingdon Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Herd_mentality
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Herd mentality
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